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Coretta Scott King Awards 2017

Awards

Coretta Scott King Awards 2017

The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. The award commemorates the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and honors his wife, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.

The Coretta Scott King Book Award was founded in 1969 by Mabel McKissick and Glyndon Greer at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The first award was given to Lillie Patterson in 1970 for her biography, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: Man of Peace (Garrard). In 1982, the Coretta Scott King Book Awards became an officially recognized ALA award.

Three awards are given annually: Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award, Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award and Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award.

- The winner of the Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award is MARCH: Book Three written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and bestselling March trilogy. Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, joins co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell to bring the lessons of history to vivid life for a new generation, urgently relevant for today's world.

Genie’s summer is full of surprises. The first is that he and his big brother, Ernie, are leaving Brooklyn to spend the summer with their grandparents --- in the COUNTRY! The second surprise comes when Genie figures out that their grandfather is blind. Genie thinks Grandpop must be the bravest guy he’s ever known, but then Ernie lets him down in the bravery department. It’s his fourteenth birthday, and, Grandpop says to become a man, you have to learn how to shoot a gun. Genie thinks that is AWESOME until he realizes Ernie has no interest in learning how to shoot. Dumbfounded by Ernie’s reluctance, Genie is left to wonder --- is bravery and becoming a man only about proving something, or is it just as important to own up to what you won’t do?

Using original slave auction and plantation estate documents, Ashley Bryan offers a moving and powerful picture book that contrasts the monetary value of a slave with the priceless value of life experiences and dreams that a slave owner could never take away. Imagine being looked up and down and being valued as less than chair. Less than an ox. Less than a dress. Maybe about the same as…a lantern. You, an object. An object to sell.

Jean-Michael Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocked to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art work had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork young readers to the powerful message and art doesn't always have to be neat or clean to be beautiful.

As slaves relentlessly toiled in an unjust system in 19th century Louisiana, they all counted down the days until Sunday, when at least for half a day they were briefly able to congregate in Congo Square in New Orleans. Here they were free to set up an open market, sing, dance and play music. They were free to forget their cares, their struggles and their oppression. This story chronicles slaves' duties each day, from chopping logs on Mondays to baking bread on Wednesdays to plucking hens on Saturday, and builds to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square.

Sophie lives with Mama and Daddy and Grandpa, who spends his days by the window. Every day after school, it's Grandpa whom Sophie runs to.

"Here I am, Grandpa!" "Ah, Sophie, how was your day?"

As Sophie and her grandpa talk, he asks her to find items he's "lost" throughout the day, guiding Sophie on a tour through his daily life and connecting their generations in this sweet, playful picture book illustrated by Caldecott Medalist and Laura Ingalls Wilder Award winner Jerry Pinkney.

Natasha believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. She's definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when her family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Daniel is the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. Something about Natasha makes him think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store --- for both of them.